Educational Psychology Third Edition Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary ...

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comments to each paper individually. Excessive time to evaluate students' work can reduce the usefulness of a
teacher’s evaluations to students when she finally does return the work (Black, et al., 2004). During the days or
weeks waiting for a test or assignment to be returned, students are left without information about the quality or
nature of their performance; at the extreme they may even have to complete another test or do another assignment
before getting information about an earlier one. (Perhaps you yourself have experienced this particular problem!)
Delays in providing feedback about academic performance can never be eliminated entirely, but they can be
reduced by keeping accurate, well-organized records of students’ work. A number of computer programs are
available to help with this challenge; if your school does not already have one in use, then there are several
downloadable either free or at low cost from the Internet (e.g.
). Describing these is beyond
the scope of this book. For now we simply emphasize that grading systems benefit students’ learning the most when
they provide feedback as quickly and frequently as possible (McMillan, 2001), precisely the reason why accurate,
well-organized record-keeping is important to keep.
Accurate records are helpful not only for scores on tests, quizzes, or assignments, but also for developing
descriptive summaries of the nature of students’ academic skills or progress. A common way to develop a
description is the student portfolio, which is a compilation of the student’s work and on-going assessments of it
created by the teacher or in some cases by the student (Moritz & Christie, 2005; White, 2005). To know how a
student’s science project evolved from its beginning, for example, a teacher and student can keep a portfolio of lab
notes, logs, preliminary data, and the like. To know how a student’s writing skills developed, they could keep a
portfolio of early drafts on various writing assignments. As the work accumulates, the student can discuss it with
the teacher, and write brief reflections on its strengths thus far or on the steps needed to improve the work further.
By providing a way to respond to work as it evolves, and by including students in making the assessments,
portfolios provide relatively prompt feedback, and in any case provide it sooner than by waiting for the teacher to
review work that is complete or final.
Communicating with parents and caregivers
Since parents and caregivers in a sense “donate” their children to schools (at least figuratively speaking),
teachers are responsible for keeping them informed and involved to whatever extent is practical. Virtually all
parents understand and assume that schools are generally intended for learning. Detailed communication can
enrich parents' understanding, of how learning is addressed with their particular child’s classroom, and show them
more precisely what their particular child is doing. The better such understanding in turn encourages parents and
caregivers to support their child’s learning more confidently and “intelligently”. In this sense it contributes
indirectly to a positive learning environment in their child’s class.
There are various ways to communicate with parents, each with advantages and limitations. Here are three
common examples:
• A regular classroom newsletter: A newsletter establishes a link with parents or caregivers with
comparatively little effort on the part of the teacher. At the beginning of the year, for example, a newsletter
can tell about special materials that students will need, important dates to remember (like professional
development days when there is no school), or about curriculum plans for the next few weeks. But
newsletters also have limitations. They can seem impersonal, and they may get lost on the way home and
Style Guidelines 144 A Global Text